crazy that the latest models from the big labs have all been minor version bumps on paper despite huge improvements in benchmark performance and qualitative feel. hard to imagine the labs releasing major versions that feel incremental at this point, which is... terrifying?
this is interesting, but feels at best incomplete. i think there are at least 3 separate reasons we haven't yet seen consistently good writing from AI, at least in long form (microfiction is arguably mostly solved): 🧵
Ryan Moulton@moultano.bsky.social · 6mo agoHypothesis: AI writing is bad primarily because in general what makes writing good is the specificity of what it communicates and its information density, so the prompt that produced good AI writing would be as long as the output.
characteristically lovely and reflective piece by @ftrain.bsky.social. if you want to better understand how the ground is shifting under every software engineer's feet right now (and soon, under pretty much *every* knowledge worker's feet), this is a great place to start
Paul Ford@ftrain.bsky.social · 6mo agoNYT OpEd asked me to explain vibe coding to a general audience, and I took a swing. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/18/o...
excellent piece, and should be required reading for anyone skeptical of the technical capabilities and policy implications of AI. there are certainly exceptions, but by and large, the political left is currently treating what should be a five-alarm fire like a distasteful spectator sport.
The left is missing out on AI
As a movement, it has largely refused to engage seriously with AI, ceding debate about a threat and opportunity to the right
transformernews.ai
i understand being skeptical about AI companies' intentions, but if you think Altman's calls for less regulation are a cynical ploy to limit checks on OpenAI's power, it seems hard to argue in the same breath that Amodei's call for *more* regulation is a cynical ploy to hype the product. pick one!
yes. right now a lot of people are high on the idea that all the unpleasant work is being done by the models, leaving humans in charge of all the valuable high-level judgment and decision-making work ("taste"). it won't last. the models will soon have better taste than any human. plan accordingly.
John David Pressman@jdp.extropian.net · 7mo agoThis is correct, so I'd really appreciate it if you took me seriously when I said the problem here is that the value of labor, all human labor, not just desk jobs, because we're going to get useful robots soon too, is going to zero and if you have a socialist bone in your body we need to organize.
I do not understand people who fly on airplanes but do not want to look out the window the whole time. You! Are! In! The! Sky!
downtown Berkeley is one of the best ice cream neighborhoods in America: * melt me creamery * almare * scoop n chill (mostly for the biscoff flavor) * caravaggio gelato lab * lexie’s frozen custard …plus a few others. it isn't why i chose to live here, but it might be why i stay here forever
i usually know exactly what my songs are trying to say, and it's almost always nothing
phoneswithchords@phoneswithchords.bsky.social · 8mo agoMy songwriting friend and I have this saying… “Sometimes the song gets there before you do.” What we mean is that often times the writer doesn’t know what a song is really about until long after it is finished. Sometimes only in hindsight do we know what we were trying to say.
a crucial thing i think is lost in much of the "is AI a net good or bad" narrative is the secondary impact to the vast majority of people who aren't at immediate risk of either losing their job or seeing it dramatically transformed. historically, this is where the bulk of utility comes from!
the gemini 3/nano banana pro combination is just really, really impressive. one-shotted absurdist comic strip
i haven't had enough time to form an impression of Gemini 3 globally, but it remains just as much of a natural-born illusionist as all the other models. takes almost no work to get it to give up the ghost on consciousness
Me: "Better catch up with what's going on in the world!" *opens phone* -1HP -1HP -1HP -1HP -1HP -1HP
still can't believe we're going to make writing worse for everyone forever just because it took microsoft 40 years to make the greatest punctuation mark in the history of the english language a first-class citizen in windows
tal yarkoni@talyarkoni.com · 9mo agothe internet has decided that em-dashes are a hallmark of llm writing, which is *extremely* annoying to me, as someone who uses em-dashes all the time. dear internet please consider the possibility that LLMs use em-dashes a lot because they're, like, good
one thing i've learned from the replies is that some people think you have to do some complex keyboard incantation to produce an em dash. on mac, at least, it's just shift-option-dash. please use it, people! don't let the llms take this away from us—they're already getting everything else
tal yarkoni@talyarkoni.com · 9mo agothe internet has decided that em-dashes are a hallmark of llm writing, which is *extremely* annoying to me, as someone who uses em-dashes all the time. dear internet please consider the possibility that LLMs use em-dashes a lot because they're, like, good
the internet has decided that em-dashes are a hallmark of llm writing, which is *extremely* annoying to me, as someone who uses em-dashes all the time. dear internet please consider the possibility that LLMs use em-dashes a lot because they're, like, good
i'm out of town and my wife just called me up to tell me there are like 25 - 30 people standing on the sidewalk outside our building. "apparently," she said, "there's a rare pokemon."
i regularly see posts here now that i would have 100% responded to on twitter 10 years ago, and i'm not sure if (a) the discourse changed, (b) i've gained some sense in my old(er) age, or (c) i just don't have that kind of energy any more. i lean towards c, and possibly b and c are the same thing
INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE SECOND INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE OVER ZOOM TO MEET MORE OF THE TEAM UNFORTUNATELY, YOU HAVE NOT BEEN SUCCESSFUL ON THIS OCCASION, BUT WE HOPE YOU'LL APPLY FOR FUTURE POSITIONS WITH THE VAMPIRE
update: the platform is too powerful. i've been absorbed as one of their own. it was foolish of me to go there
tal yarkoni@talyarkoni.com · 10mo agocurrently trying my best to turn linkedin into tumblr. send help
currently trying my best to turn linkedin into tumblr. send help
The Onion News Network truck is currently stationed outside the Broadview ICE Detention facility just outside of Chicago.
this is also my take. Yglesias is high-profile, very prolific, and iconoclastic, so it's easy for people to find strong takes to disagree with. but i think if you forced his critics to read everything he writes, the dominant response would be "meh, okay, i agree with most of that."
@lastpositivist.bsky.social · 11mo agoI don't really find Matt Yglesias as bad as a lot of yinz apparently do. I just disagree with him about a bunch of stuff. Important stuff, I grant. But still. In terms of, like, how evil or annoying I think people are, he doesn't really feature very highly at all for me.
California is best understood as a Greek tragedy. arguably the most beautiful territory in the world, with a perfect climate, yet its stubborn attachment to cars, roads, and (tiny) back yards dooms it to endless affordability crises and NIMBYist apologism
tal yarkoni@talyarkoni.com · 11mo agoi felt rage at this on a regular basis living in SV. single-family zoning throughout almost the entire peninsula. buildings capped at 2 - 3 stories right next to commuter rail stations. want to put a corner store on the ground floor of a residential mid-rise on a busy street? lol, move to tokyo
i felt rage at this on a regular basis living in SV. single-family zoning throughout almost the entire peninsula. buildings capped at 2 - 3 stories right next to commuter rail stations. want to put a corner store on the ground floor of a residential mid-rise on a busy street? lol, move to tokyo
Ryan Moulton@moultano.bsky.social · 11mo agoNothing is more radicalizing than Silicon valley's land use, and sometimes I regret the fact that this intra-CA squabble broke containment and has people from other states participating in discourse. Y'all just don't get it. At best we can serve as a cautionary tale.
